A system of heraldry considers relationships to a sovereign. Used signs are according the following table ( I've marked the first 3, as these are the most important, from which I think, that they express SUN - MOON - STAR) ...

The eldest son, during the lifetime of his father, bears the family arms with the addition of a label;
the second son a crescent,
the third, a mullet,
the fourth, a martlet,
the fifth, an annulet;
the sixth, a fleur-de-lis;
the seventh, a rose; the eighth, a cross moline; the ninth, a double quatrefoil.

1st son: Label with three points
"In heraldry, a label is a charge resembling the strap crossing the horse’s chest from which pendants are hung."
"the label was used to mark the elder son"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Label_(heraldry)

2nd son: Crescent
... the sign of an ascending moon

3rd son: sign "Mullet"
"The term mullet or molet refers to a star with straight sides"

Gallo-British heraldry
Main articles: Canadian heraldry, Cornish heraldry, English heraldry, French heraldry, Irish heraldry, Scottish heraldry and Welsh heraldry
The use of cadency marks to difference arms within the same family and the use of semy fields are distinctive features of Gallo-British heraldry (in Scotland the most significant mark of cadency being the bordure, the small brisures playing a very minor role). It is common to see heraldic furs used.[45] In the United Kingdom, the style is notably still controlled by royal officers of arms.[54] French heraldry experienced a period of strict rules of construction under the Emperor Napoleon.[55] English and Scots heraldries make greater use of supporters than other European countries.[46]

Furs, chevrons and five-pointed stars are more frequent in France and Britain than elsewhere.

Latin heraldry
Main articles: Portuguese heraldry and Spanish heraldry
The heraldry of southern France, Andorra, Portugal, Spain, and Italy is characterized by a lack of crests, and uniquely shaped shields.[56] Portuguese and Spanish heraldry occasionally introduce words to the shield of arms, a practice disallowed in British heraldry. Latin heraldry is known for extensive use of quartering, because of armorial inheritance via the male and the female lines. Moreover, Italian heraldry is dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, featuring many shields and achievements, most bearing some reference to the Church.[57]

Trees are frequent charges in Latin arms. Charged bordures, including bordures inscribed with words, are seen often in Spain.

French and English heraldry are put in one group, likely cause they have some relationship.
If the idea of a correspondece between Sun-Moon-Star and the 3 eldest sons was also used in Italy one can't say from this (Northern Italy hadn't a kingdom as France and England had), but obviously the birth of the oldest son was naturally much more celebrated than that of the second. Roughly one recognizes a sort of Italian model, that the first son became the title-holder, the second a condottiero and the third took function in the church (whereby the order could have been changed occasionally, possibly according the talents, that the sons showed. Sometimes it seems, that the second son wasn't married, before the first has gotten a son, avoiding the situation, that a lower branch might have been older than the first-son-line.

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As phenemenons of Trionfi or Tarot decks or related systems (astrology for instance) we have some iconographic material to the sun-theme

1. Helios/Phaethon ... Phaethon as the oldest son
... used in the Mantegna Tarocchi
2. Apollo .... as the "oldest son of Zeus"
... used in Mitelli Tarot
... used in Manilius astrology
... used in general astrology
3. A single young male figure, often connected to a horse
... the putto in the PBM, second group
... the (possible) putto in the Cary-Sheet as discussed recently, with flag and hobby horse
... a naked crazy Orlando, destroying a tree (Kaplan II, page 288)
... the male rider in the Vieville deck,
... the male child on a horse in the Rider-Waite deck
... possibly others still to discover?
4. A pair of figures
... a. two lovers, possibly associated to Adam + Eve or just lovers preparing a sexual action
...... in German lot book pope-donkey for Gemini
...... in Minchiate (the male rider appears as crowned king on the star card; Castor and Pollux or two female figures appear on Gemini card)
... b. two male figures in the Castor+Pollux style
...... in astrology as Gemini
...... in Tarot de Marseilles versions
... c. fighting brothers
...... Tarocco Sicilano (the male rider is used on the star card)
... d. Diogenes + Alexander
...... Este cards
... e. woman with monkey
...... Tarot de Paris
5. A female figure connected to wool-spinning
... in Charles VI
... in Bolognese Tarocchi tradition
6. Single suns without figures
... Rosenwald Tarocchi
... Rosenthal Tarocchi (with castle "Fortezza")
... Guldhall and Goldschmidt
... Dick Tarot

Maybe, that this is far from being complete. Generally considered it seems, that the idea "Sun" was rather creatively handled.

Marco's recent finding has a specific place in it. I think, that the "oldest-son-in-heraldry"-phenomenon plays a role especially for this special version (number 3 in my order)

Your reconstruction I think takes a greater account of all the available details, better than that even at Pollett's site, in that it takes into account the pole that in your version becomes the stick of the hobby horse, a very convincing reconstruction.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. T. S. Eliot

(Gerozzo. So what do you want me to do?
Giannino. That you go into the house while I go to find her, and I will remain with her as agreed: and just before evening you will make the thirty-five of Germini.
Gerozzo. What the devil did you say?
Giannino. Do not be surprised, if I do not understand your Latin, that you do not understand mine either.
Gerozzo. Oh, this is grammar?
Giannino. No, sir, indeed it is cypher and here below the most beautiful secret of Maremma.
Gerozzo. Do me the grace that I understand it a little.
Giannino. Just as the thirty-five of Germini depicts two naked people embracing together, so does it signify how you will be with your Diamante.)

I know that Jupiter and Juno were brother and sister, but that was different. There wasn't anybody else. Did you hear of any children from the union of Apollo and Artemis? Artemis was one of those virgin goddesses, I thought. But this idea of "doing the thirty-five of Germini" might just be something Aretino thought up, I don't know.

(They made me the Moon of the Germini
I am the curly-headed and I am beautiful,
so I complain of Fortune
since I do not win on anything higher than the star,
but I deserved to be the one
that got the news from the trumpet.
What has been done to me is a great wrong,
but I forgive and I am willing to be patient.)

Andrea says that "Rocciolinia" is the Moon; I thought Apollo was the curly-headed one, but if they are twins, why not both? This stanza is not evidence, however; it only says that Rocciolinia was the Moon card in the deck; (different whores were assigned different cards), not that she was the Moon on the Gemini card.

So I'm left puzzled. Also, I don't think the Rider-Waite on your list counts, because it derives from Vieville with influence from the Chaldean Oracles (as translated by Westcott) and anyway is not very historic.

mikeh wrote:
Huck: how do you know that the Germini Sun figures are Artemis and Apollo? Is it a process of elimination, or do you have some positive reason?

...

So I'm left puzzled. Also, I don't think the Rider-Waite on your list counts, because it derives from Vieville with influence from the Chaldean Oracles (as translated by Westcott) and anyway is not very historic.

Thanks, this was a composing error mixed with some wrong memory. I noted it, but did forget to erase the wrong entry. I repaired it.

Rider Waite has a boy on a horse. If he took it from Vieville, that's okay, cause Vieville is also on the list.

mikeh wrote:
Also, I don't think the Rider-Waite on your list counts, because it derives from Vieville with influence from the Chaldean Oracles (as translated by Westcott) and anyway is not very historic.

Rider Waite has a boy on a horse. If he took it from Vieville, that's okay, cause Vieville is also on the list.

He got it from Levi, who in Trancendental Magic described the 'naked child on a white horse with a scarlet banner' as a variation of the Sun card (most probably the Vieville).

In 'The History of Magic' (p.68, Waite's Translation) Levi connects the card with the Chaldean Oracles:

These astonishing sentences, which are taken from the Latin of Patricius, embody the secrets of magnetism and of things far deeper.... We find [a] the Astral Light described perfectly, together with its power of producing fluidic forms, of reflecting language and echoing the voice; the will of the adept signified by the stalwart child mounted on a white horse—a symbole met with in an ancient Tarot card preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale...

Levi gives his source for the oracles as Franciscus Patricius*, published in 1593:

To check what is here advanced, the reader may consult the commentary of Psellus on the doctrine of the ancient Assyrians: it may be found in the work of Franciscus Patricius on Philosophical Magic, p.24 of the Hamburg edition, which appeared in 1593.

I thought the relation to Janus, Apollo and Diana had been mentioned here before, but I can't find it, if it has, sorry for the repetition:-

Macrobius Saturnalia Book 1, Chapter 7

5. The physicists on the other hand produce strong evidence for his divinity. For there are some who identify Janus with Apollo and Diana and maintain that he combines in himself the divine attributes of both. 6. Indeed, as Nigidius, too, relates, Apollo is worshipped among the Greeks under the name of “the God of the Door” (Thyraios), and they pay honors at altars to him before their doors, showing thereby that he has power over their going out and their coming in. Among the Greeks Apollo is also called “the Guardian of the Streets” (Aguieus), as presiding over the streets of a city (for in Greece the streets within a city’s baoundaries are called aguiai); and to Diana, as Trivia, is assigned the rule over all roads. 7. At Rome all doorways are under the charge of Janus, as is evident from his name which is the Latin equivalent of the Greek Thyraios; and he is represented as carrying a key and a rod, as the keeper of all doors and a guide on every road. 8. Nigidius declared that Apollo is Janus and that Diana is Jana, that is to say, Jana (iana) with the addition of the letter “D,” which is often added to the letter “I” for the sake of euphony (as, for example, in such words as reditur, redhibetur, redintegratur, and the like).

9. Some are of the opinion that Janus represents the sun and that his two faces (geminus) suggest his lordship over each of the two heavenly gates, since the sun’s rising opens and his setting closes the day. The fact that men call on the name of Janus first when any god is worshipped is held to indicate that it is through him that access may be had to the god to whom the sacrifice is being made, and that it is as it were through his doors that he suffers the prayers of suppliants to pass to the gods. 10. Again, it is as marking his connection with the sun that an image of Janus commonly shows him expressing the number three hundred with his right hand and sixty five with his left; for these numbers point to the measure of a year, and it is a special function of the sun to determine this measure.

SteveM

* Folengo's Janus makes reference to the City of Apollo with its high walls, stars, sun, moon, tower (along the lines of the Tower of Babel), world, Janus as a man of 'single-face' harrased by dogs, as a man with long white beard as a figure of 'Time', the poet himself as a madman, foolish person, the theme of the choice between two roads, and virtues and fama. Probably any relation to tarot trumps is coincidental, but given his Tarocchi Appropriati sonnets, his connection with the Gonzaga/d'Este court (members of which family are addressed in the poem), and tarocchi appropriati being associated with that court, possibly not.

The later "Fate with distaff" sun trumps, shown above, may in fact derive from Guariento's proto-Children of the Planets scheme (more directly related to the ages of man) in the Padua planetary cycle scheme - the Sun and note the woman on right with yarn: